ash & oak
by Robin-Blue
Summary: Noah attends Salem Institute of Magic where an injured girl is brought during his second year of studies. He finds himself drawn to the odd girl and over time manages to discover her mysterious past and form a friendship. However, she must protect him when her past suddenly returns. OCs mostly, detailed summary inside.


**A/N:** I'll warn you now, this isn't your typical HP fanfic in the sense that 1) all the characters are OC, 2) it takes place at Salem Institute of Magic/Salem Witches' Institute located in Salem, Massachusetts, USA in a modern 20-something setting. However the world is still very much based around the one J.K. Rowling has set up with her Harry Potter series. So bare with me here if this isn't quite what you expect. Rated M for strong language and maybe some lemony goodness.

**Summary:** During Noah Lockwood's second year a the Salem Institute of Magic, a strange girl is taken into the school seeking medical aid and in doing so, forever being shunned from her people. Finding the school to be her new undesired home, during his seven years at Salem, Noah gradually befriends the strange female discovering her origins and how she came to the school. Over the years their bond grows and friendship becomes more however it would come at a price when her past seems to return with a vengeance.

Ash & oak a story about two people coming together, working out their differences and finding something they never really realized they were missing.

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**chapter one**

It had been raining earlier in the day. It was still grey and drops were dripping from the trees when a man emerged from the forest surrounding the school. The man was tall and beautiful, with long, long auburn hair reaching almost to his knees. There were small braids and jewels woven throughout. If the sun had been shining his hair may have looked like it was on fire. His skin was flawless, lightly tanned and he wore a simple pair of brown riding pants and a plum coloured tunic with small-embroidered flowers stitched through the cloth with impeccable detail. Oddly, perhaps, for all his jewels and fine clothing, his feet were bare. As he got closer to the school, people began noticing him and they could not help but stare for even far away he - a few students even got up out of their seats in the middle of their lecture to get a closer look and (much to the dismay of their professors) the rest began to follow suit, crowding around the windows just to see what was going on. As he came closer, they could see his shirt was not so fine as it had initially appeared, for in his arm he carried a bloody, crumpled body.

As he reached the doors of the school he shifted the body, effortlessly, in his arms, freeing one hand allowing him to pound on the great giant doors of the school.

A student opens it before one of the professors can get to the door. He almost gasps at how handsome the stranger before him is – despite his own sexual preference for women. The young student can't seem to look away. The man however cares little about what is thought of him, his mind on the task at hand. "The Headmaster. I need to see him. Now." His voice was deep, musical even and the majority who heard it immediately think of pine and cinnamon and almost fail to see the grievance to his words before a young woman comes forward, telling the students to return to their classes.

Slowly, almost fearful they shall never look upon something, or someone rather, so wonderful again, the students shuffle off until it is only the young professor and the strange man with the girl in his arms. Professor Phaedra thinks about asking questions – 'who are you?' '_what _are you?' (although she thinks she has an idea already) 'what has happened to the young girl?', 'how dare you disrupt classes' all float across her mind – but something in the male's eyes make her hold her tongue and she, instead, shifts her gaze on the bloody figure. It seems to make it easier to look away from him, his handsome face and do something. She leads him through a series of halls and stairs before coming to a pair of doors. She knocks in the door but doesn't wait for an affirmation to come in before opening them and stepping through.

"Miss Rose, we need to see Headmaster Maynard, now. Is he in his office?" Phaedra says, only glancing at the secretary, an elderly round woman with a kind face and pink curls on top of her head, seated at her great cherry wood desk to the right.

Miss Rose stares for a moment at the male, her mouth opened slightly and the quill in her hand slipping before spraying ink across the page on the desk in front of her. A quite, "oh my!" passes through her lips that Phaedra just catches before the secretary remembers herself, "He-he just stepped out for a moment, he should be back soon."

Phaedra nods; tapping her wand against a pair of great wooden doors at the opposite end of the small secretary office, and whispers the password, ("rochester") at which the carvings on the door seem to move, and a faint unlocking sound is heard. She ushers the young man in before following, closing the doors behind them.

"He'll be here soon," she tells him, though she's unsure if she says it more for her benefit then his.

"He must hurry, she is almost gone."

The young girl is barely conscious when she hears (or at least thinks she does, she really wouldn't be surprised if she was imagining things at this point) Fionn telling her to focus on the pain and not to pass out before she is suddenly moving. She tries to open her eyes, but even the effort to lift her eyelids seems too much and hurts. So she does what she's told and focuses on the pain to ground her. They're moving through the forest, fast, but she's no sure where too. She focuses on the pain – left arm broken, wrist broken, left leg probably broken in two spots, right leg broken in one at least. Right shoulder out of its socket…two ribs broken at least…head…head…

Seconds, minutes, hours later, she hears a loud door slam, followed by whispers. She tires to open her eyes but what she can only guess to be blood has dripped down, gotten stuck in her eyelashes, drying slightly and she can't bother to care that much. Fionn is demanding to see a headmaster. If she had the energy, she would struggle. She shouldn't be here, and neither should Fionn, it's forbidden. But she can't struggle, too many of her bones are broken and she has no energy. She accepts her fate for now but even her furry at Fionn for this betrayal cannot stop her from being sucked down into blackness.

The next time she awakens she is lying on her back staring up at a ceiling she doesn't recognize. The room is bathed in an orange light and she can only guess that the sun is setting but has no idea how many days she's be asleep. While for many, waking up in a staring place would normally be a reason to panic, she doesn't. Instead, she grips her left hand into a fist; it is a stiff, slow motion. She raises her fist up in front of her before stretching out the fingers. She cannot decide if the fact her arms seem to be functioning is good or bad, though there is still a small dull throbbing pain.

"Oh hey! You're awake," an energetic young voice says across the room.

She chides herself; she should have checked she was alone before letting anyone see her like this, so venerable and broken. They would more then willingly use it as an advantage.

"You've had the whole school buzzing with rumors wondering about you since you came in yesterday. Doc wouldn't let anyone in to find anything out though – I'm only here cause I fell off my broom during Quidditch try outs – you'd think I would have been more careful about the Bludgers after everything my sisters told me, Nova got one in her side once, cracked three ribs, but no, I had to find out for myself – oh, um, you want me to get the doctor for you?"

She tunes him out quickly and ignores most of what he says as she surveys the status of her body. Most of her bones have been set and she seems to be healing surprisingly well, her left arm in a sling and her left leg splintered. She is hungry though and still feels tired. Slowly she takes the risk and tries to sit up. Though it is a bit of an effort after everything her ribs have been through, she manages it and surveys the room. It is not an overly large room. There are four beds across from her, one with the boy who was prattling on and another three empty beds on the side she lays on. She is the second last bed away from a great window that makes up the back wall, outside it she can see only trees. A door is located at the other end of the room, currently closed, and large windows, most with blinds shading the light, take up the majority of the other two walls.

Ignoring the young boy, she makes note of the exits and estimates how many steps it would take to get there should she half to. The windows are not practical, as she has no idea how high up she is, but she considerers them too, just incase.

Any plan to actually escape however is put on hold as an young man with shoulder length blond hair pulled back in a loose pony tail and a long crisp white double breasted jacket enters the room, his head down looking at some papers on a clipboard. "Noah, I think it's best we keep you over ni– oh hello miss. You're awake. Good, good. I'm Doctor Avery," he moves over to her bed, picking up the clipboard at the end, flipping through the parchment pages. "Yes, you had quite a few broken bones and a major amount of blood loss…you've been a sleep for almost two days. Though I was able to help most of your bones heal and replace some of the blood you lost, you will have some rather severe scars left that my magic couldn't seem to do much for…" his smile faltered only a little but she noticed. She maintained a blank look on her face, even if she was annoyed to hear pity in his voice. The scars on her body were not her concern at the moment.

She licked her lips, surprised how cracked and dry they are, "how—" her voice cracked and she tried again, "how long must I remain here?"

His smile was replaced with a look of seriousness as he turned his gaze back to the parchment charts, "Ideally, I'd like to keep you here for a couple weeks at least. I'm not fully sure how your body will react to magic and any long-term effects you may suffer." She simply nodded in reply, and turned to look out the window. She could see the trees silhouetted as the sky turned a pinky-purple. She heard the forest calling but knew she could never go back. It hurt. Would she have to live with it the rest of her life? That internal nagging, knowing you should be somewhere else but never being able to find it. A part of her wanted to lash out violently at the wizard before her who had supposedly saved her only at the cost of ensuring she could never return home. She didn't but imagining the sound of his neck breaking under her hands was still satisfying, even if she knows he was only trying to do what his kind alleged as right.

"Yes, well," Doctor Avery said after a moment, breaking the heavy silence that had seemed to settle over the room. "I'm sure you're hungry. I'll have some food sent up for both of you in a moment, please eat, it will help you to regain your strength, then sleep would probably be best. The headmaster will probably like to see you in the morning, check in on you."

She just nods, still looking out the window, uninterested in anything else he has to say. After a moment, the doctor moves over to the boy and speaks to him to him, before leaving. Food comes soon after his departure, on a cart pushed by a house elf. She can't help but wrinkle her nose, after the food she is use to this mortal food tasted bland and…ordinary. Despite this though she found herself hungry enough to eat most of it while trying not to think of a home she could never return to… and instead, multiple ways of silencing the boy who would not shut up.

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**A/N: **Well, there you have it. I'm rather unsure if I should bother continuing this. If you enjoyed it, please let me know and then I'll know to keep writing! Also, she gets a name next chapter. I'm sure reading "she" and "her" over and over was annoying – believe me, it was annoying to type out so many times.


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